Joke if you must about turning in your homework seven years late, but that’s exactly what the U.S. Commerce Department has done with an Internet traffic study Capitol Hill demanded–and for which they set aside $1 million–under the 1998 Next Generation Internet Research Act. Now it is arriving . . . after the first dot-com bust and changes upon changes in cyberspace that may have outpaced what the report’s researchers were observing.
The study, performed by the National Research Council under the 1998 law, focuses on Web addresses and trademarks as well as actual or anticipated trends. But since the work began, Google became the world’s No. 1 search engine, Napster went from being the granddaddy of peer-to-peer file swapping to bankruptcy to rebirth as a pay-to-play online music store, high-tech executives and investors made and lost fortunes, Web addresses increased by about 63 million, and there were three turnovers in the office of Secretary of Commerce.
Charles Brownstein, who directs the NRC’s computer science and telecommunications board, told reporters the delays were caused by factors including the report’s writers spotting “dramatic changes” in the issues they were studying–including search engine improvements and trademark safeguarding, as well as the proper role of governments in cyberspace–as well as Washington’s failure to actually pony up the money to pay for the study until 2001.
Published reports on the release date of the study were divided over how relevant it might be now. Some said the 283-page study still had significance and relevance, while others admitted that so much time had passed since the report was ordered that few if any anticipated its conclusions—assuming that many were even aware that the report would be done at all.
"(M)ost people forgot it was ever going to happen," University of Miami Internet law professor Michael A. Froomkin told reporters. "When it started, it seemed important, then it faded completely from sight."
Among other conclusions said to be in the report include a finding that the Internet’s “behind the scenes” address scheme, the domain-name system, is robust and suitable for the Web’s future needs. The report’s writers urged that minor technical improvements be made to secure it from hackers and natural-disaster-inflicted outages.
Recommendations are believed to include moving some of the 13 key traffic-directing computers outside Washington and Los Angeles, and that those computers should be operated by volunteers, organizations, and corporations around the world instead of governments. The recommendations also include dozens of new Net-address suffixes to be introduced annually to meet the swelling of Internet addresses and sites.
